Three candidates are on the ballot for Maine governor in 2026: Democrat Hannah Pingree, Republican Bobby Charles, and independent Rick Bennett. Pingree, a former Maine House Speaker, and Charles, an attorney and former U.S. State Department official, won their party primaries on June 9 after ranked-choice tabulation. Bennett, an outgoing state senator, qualified for the ballot by petition. They meet in the general election on November 3, 2026.
The seat is open because Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat first elected in 2019, is term-limited. Thirteen major-party candidates filed by the March 2026 deadline, producing the largest gubernatorial field Maine had seen in years.
The Three November Candidates
Hannah Pingree (Democrat)
Pingree is a former Maine House Speaker who most recently led Governor Mills’s policy office. Her platform centers on $100 million in annual housing investment, a public health insurance option, and expanded clean energy programs. She carries Mills’s endorsement into the general election. She is the daughter of U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree.
Bobby Charles (Republican)
Charles is an attorney from Leeds who ran the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs under President George W. Bush. He campaigned on cutting taxes and spending, addressing crime, and eliminating ranked-choice voting, which he called “patently absurd.” Observers described his primary campaign as Trump-style, with heavy social media use and combative rhetoric. Charles declined to appear at a PBS candidate forum with his primary rivals.
His State Department tenure has drawn scrutiny during the campaign. A 2005 federal audit described the bureau he ran as “structurally dysfunctional.” Charles has defended his record, saying he was brought in to impose fiscal discipline under wartime conditions.
Rick Bennett (Independent)
Bennett is an outgoing state senator from Oxford County and a former chair of the Maine Republican Party. He left the GOP in 2025 to run as an independent. He submitted more than 5,000 petition signatures before the June 1 deadline, of which 4,517 were verified, clearing the 4,000-signature threshold for ballot access. He is the only independent candidate on the November ballot.
Bennett’s campaign focuses on affordability and bipartisan problem-solving. He has said he wants to end the “partisanship and finger-pointing” of current politics and has named gas, housing, and food costs as his top concerns.
How Pingree Won the Democratic Primary
Five Democrats competed: Pingree; Nirav Shah, former director of the Maine CDC and Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. CDC under President Biden; Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; former Senate President Troy Jackson; and businessman Angus King III, the eldest son of U.S. Senator Angus King.
The contest turned on housing affordability, healthcare access, energy costs, property tax relief, and tribal sovereignty. All five candidates opposed the Trump administration’s policies. Shah led early polling and benefited from significant outside spending by the 314 Action Fund. In late May, Bellows, Jackson, and Pingree announced a formal ranked-choice alliance, asking their supporters to rank all three at the top of their ballots.
On election night, no candidate came close to a majority. First-choice tallies were:
- Nirav Shah: 26.8%
- Hannah Pingree: 23.3%
- Troy Jackson: 21%
- Shenna Bellows: 20.7%
- Angus King III: 8.2%
Roughly 13,000 votes separated first from fourth. Ranked-choice tabulation began June 12 at the Secretary of State’s office in Augusta. King was eliminated first, then Bellows, then Jackson. The alliance held: according to FairVote’s analysis, 62% of Bellows’s redistributed votes went to Pingree, and 58% of Jackson’s did the same. The Secretary of State’s office announced results early on June 19. Pingree won 111,750 to 86,950, roughly 56% to 44%. Two-thirds of Democratic primary voters ranked her somewhere in their top three.
How Charles Won the Republican Primary
Eight Republicans filed. Alongside Charles, the field included:
- Jonathan Bush, co-founder of athenahealth, running as a business outsider focused on shrinking state government
- Ben Midgley, the founding partner and former CEO behind Crunch Fitness and a former Planet Fitness executive, campaigning on affordability, energy costs, welfare reform, and education
- Garrett Mason, a former Senate majority leader making his second gubernatorial bid after a 2018 loss, who criticized rivals for trying to “impersonate President Donald Trump”
- David Jones, a real estate business owner who proposed a $500,000 homestead exemption to eliminate property taxes on primary residences
- Owen McCarthy, a healthcare entrepreneur who released a 130-policy plan called “Maine 2040”
- Robert Wessels, a small business owner
- State Senator James Libby
Common themes across the Republican field were cutting the state income tax, reducing government spending, and business-friendly deregulation.
First-choice results put Charles well ahead:
- Bobby Charles: 37.9%
- Ben Midgley: 20.1%
- Jonathan Bush: 19.8%
- Garrett Mason: 11.3%
- Four remaining candidates: single digits each
No candidate reached a majority, triggering ranked-choice tabulation. In the seventh and final round on June 19, Charles won 59,873 votes (60.3%) to Midgley’s 39,499 (39.7%). It was the first time ranked-choice voting had been used in a Maine gubernatorial primary.
What to Know About the November Election
The general election on November 3, 2026, will be a three-way race. One point matters for voters expecting a rerun of the primary process: under the Maine constitution, ranked-choice voting applies only to federal races in general elections, not to races for governor. The next governor will be chosen by a traditional plurality vote, so whoever finishes first wins, whether or not they clear 50%. That rule shapes Bennett’s path as the sole independent seeking to draw dissatisfied voters from both major parties.